Hi all, I've been a lifelong lighting enthusiast that has only just recently really recognized how much I enjoy lighting. The neighborhood I grew up in was rather large and built in the 50's, needless to say it had many MV cobraheads. Some of the earliest memories I have with lighting is riding around in the car at night staring at all the streetlights looking for the blue ones among all the orange. Part of that is being as young as I was my head was lower than the bottom of the window and all I could do is look up. Flash forward many years and what really got me into lighting was trying to improve the lighting where I worked. It had several 400w MH highbays that were almost 10 years old and burning dimly. For some reason it drew my attention and I wanted to make it better. I ended up doing tons of research and found a high quality lamp that put out great quality light (Philips 330w cdm allstart, 90cri!). It has been all downhill from there. All the lighting around my house has mostly focused on HPS as MV attracts too many bugs.

I have a few hps and MV fixtures and bits that I have acquired from eBay and have my first LPS fixture coming from the UK (beta 5), for which I am very excited. LPS is almost non-existent where I live, but I have found one installation of them as overhead lighting for a walkway in an office park in norcross off of jimmy carter Blvd. I hope to take photos of these at some point.

After many years I have found that I am quite an odd bird to be so fascinated by these things. However, I'm very happy to be as I am and excited to be in a community of folks just as interested in the wonderful world of lighting!

Welcome to the site! I'm about 2 hours up I-85 from you. The biggest L-G "swap meet" I've been to consisted of myself and 3 other members, and it actually was in Georgia. Maybe something similar can be set up again.

Welome to Lighting Gallery, ironically my name is also Andy! LG is full of great people. To give an example, for years I talked off and on with a member here after noticing their location was listed as Alaska. Later, when I moved to Fairbanks, where they're also located, we got together pretty quickly and frankly they were the first local other than a classmate or instructor I said more than two words to and vice versa. First time we ever met was "Welcome to Fairbanks!" He proceeded to even drive me all over town showing me (1) interesting light scenery, including lots of old MV, as well as just giving me a tour of the area. We still talk all the time.